


Illness

by mrhiddles



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Cancer, Caretaking, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 06:29:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1769062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrhiddles/pseuds/mrhiddles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki is sick and Thor is there for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Illness

**Author's Note:**

> Posting this on its own as it's in my top five personal favorites and I rarely like my writing after I finish it. Originally a part of my [Thorki Ficlets](http://archiveofourown.org/works/800113/chapters/1507445). I'll be posting a couple more on their own here shortly.
> 
> Prompt: AU in which either Thor or Loki is sick with a terminal illness, and they find a way to cope.
> 
> Warnings for: Vague descriptions of the side effects of chemo therapy, cancer. Nothing too graphic.

Loki is flipping channels when Thor comes back into the living room.

He watches Loki, wrapped in a large woolen blanket with his hair up in a loose tie-back. Wayward strands hang by his temples like whispery ink and Thor wants to smooth them back. He hates when his hair hangs in front of his face, it tickles him. Loki doesn’t mind. He never seems to mind.

Thor walks to Loki and takes the controller away. He replaces it with a bowl of steaming chili with too much cheese. Loki always loves to pile it high and complain later that he ate too much. But he needs it.

His sunken eyes find Thor’s and he doesn’t pretend to smile in thanks.

He’s tired.

“Come on, love,” Thor murmurs as he scoots in beside Loki.

He manages to get one thigh under the blanket and press it beside Loki’s before Loki stills and then shifts to do it for him. He maneuvers until both thighs are draped over his lap and Thor can soothe the aching muscles of his calves with steady, plying fingers.

“I can’t find anything to watch,” he complains, reaching for the remote again.

Thor hands it to him. Says, “Did you take your pill?”

“Last for tonight, yeah. Movie or show?”

Thor kneads the tight muscle around an old, long scar and drags his nails through the fine hair that covers his legs. He thinks of the larger scars on Loki’s chest. Loki’s muscle twitches and he huffs into his next bite of chili.

“Movie. Could be something on in twenty minutes.”

Loki nods and Thor lets himself look. He takes in the thin line of a would-be wrinkle on Loki’s forehead that tells of his glaring, his frowning. The way his eyes seem huge for his head and the way his hair looks too light. Too airy. Thor thinks of how it feels to run his fingers through it. He takes in the way Loki is wearing another of his shirts, too baggy by far. But he knows Loki finds comfort in their scent they carry. Loki spoons his chili in and swallows quickly, like he’s starving. He licks his lips again and again.

Thor stares. Loki allows his staring these days. He allows a lot of things.

Thor thinks sometimes that it could have always been like this.

Part of Thor misses the fire of their fights, their arguments and the way Loki would leave for a year and pop up again in Nevada, or Utah, or New York. The way they would kiss when they were finally back together.

He likes how Loki allows his touches, generous and nearly constant as they are. He’s always touching Loki. Holding his wrist. Hand on his lower back. Fingers carding through his thin hair. Lips on his forehead, his cheek, his mouth, the plain of his stomach, and lower. Lower. He loves hugging Loki with Loki’s arms around his neck or his waist in return. He loves the scent of him as he breathes his brother in.

But Thor isn’t stupid.

And neither is Loki.

Loki coughs once, the sound rough and painful to Thor. Thor chooses to ignore it, scoots closer so that he can wrap an arm around Loki’s shoulders. Loki turns his head and spits into his napkin and Thor sees dark red stained there.

He rubs Loki’s back as he coughs again for some time.

“Ugh,” Loki says finally. “I hate that.”

“Come here,” Thor tells him.

Some minutes pass by on the drone of TV static; the buzz of mindless promos and ads before the next movie starts.

Loki sets his food down on the table and sits forward, wordlessly asking what Thor is already moving to provide. He wraps his arm around his brother and pulls him into his lap. The blanket falls loose around their limbs and so Thor gathers it up around them again. It’s hot enough that Thor feels his thighs rub together in his loose shorts but he doesn’t care. Loki likes the warmth.

It’s the middle of summer.

Loki nuzzles his cheek absently, nose skimming his temple, the corner of his eye, down to his jaw. His breath rattles loose and careful in Thor’s ear and it’s something that’s always made his heart ache to hear.

“I start another cycle in two weeks,” Loki says, words soft.

“Yeah. I’ll drive you,” Thor says, and kisses him. Loki smiles weakly into it and sighs after, forehead coming to rest against Thor’s neck. Loki knows Thor will always drive him. It’s what he does.

He does a lot for Loki.

\--

Loki had never taken to nausea well.

Thor places a cold rag against the shine of sweat along Loki’s neck. He’s flushed bright red from his shoulders up and he braces himself against the rim of the toilet. He vomits all he’s eaten that day, including the chili Thor made him only two hours earlier. He grunts and groans and yells curses as if it will empty his stomach faster. Thor will sometimes catch Loki with two fingers down his throat, avoiding the event of camping out in the bathroom later on.

Thor never likes it but he lets it happen. Loki isn’t out to kill himself.

He doesn’t have to.

In the space between Loki’s ragged breathing and vicious lurching, Thor spreads careful fingers over his brother’s forehead and gets his hair out of his face. He ties it back with his a stray tie and sets to wiping the cool cloth over his face.

There’s blood this time and Thor has to bite his lip to keep the quiver hidden.

“You don’t have to do this,” Loki forces out in a whisper. “You don’t have to do any of this.”

“Of course I do. You’re my brother.”

Loki takes a deep breath and meets Thor’s eyes. He nods. Then he’s back to retching.

\--

Its eight hours between floors when they’re back at the hospital in two weeks.

Loki’s sitting with his arm plugged into several machines that whir and buzz in one part of the hospital and Thor is handed a stack of papers in another.

He’s given a sympathetic stare, a nod, a smile that’s too indifferent and fake for him to take as sincere.

He hates the hospital more than his brother does.

He’s told things like _soon_. Like, _arrangements would be wise_. Like, _the cost is_ …

Thor feels like yelling for the first time in years but he doesn’t.

He doesn’t scream his anger over needless things anymore.

Loki would reproach him about it anyway.

\--

That weekend when they’re lying in bed, Loki tucked warm and safe in Thor’s arms—a sentiment Loki would never agree with if Thor thought to voice it—Loki kisses him. He keeps kissing him. Thor returns them.

Loki licks into his mouth and presses a palm against Thor’s heart when he sighs with it.

“Why did we start this, Thor?” he whispers.

Thor swallows an answer and sucks on Loki’s tongue instead.

Loki pushes his thigh between Thor’s and rolls them until he’s lying atop his brother. Thor doesn’t argue, how could he ever? Instead, he wraps his arms around Loki’s waist, roams hands over his back and the curve of his thighs and presses them together.

Loki winds his fingers through Thor’s long hair, gripping his skull and moaning into his ear. Before he wouldn’t have cared to allow himself to, but now he knows Thor likes it. It isn’t such a fault these days, to be made so vulnerable.

Thor catalogues every sound he makes. He wants to remember. He wants to remember everything. He doesn’t want to have to remember anything.

He wants Loki to stay with him. Always.

But Thor isn’t stupid.

And neither is Loki.


End file.
